tisdag 11 mars 2014

Kiss of the damned (2012)



Xan Cassavetes erotic arthouse vampirehorror is an interesting movie. It's pretty obvious that the major inspiration comes from eurohorror like the late great Jean Rollin and as a tribute or a pastiche it is quite succesful with an air of eroticism pervading the whole enterprise, achieving perfection with gorgeous cinematography and a most excellent soundtrack. Where it fails though is the story which is light as a feather and mostly not really that interesting. We met Djuna the vampire who falls in love with screenwriter Paolo and turns him into one of her own, embarking on a passionate love affair. Mimi, her hated sister arrives and tension rises but not much of interest for the viewer, up to this point the actors have spent 45 minutes action like every character in an arthouse movie is expected to act. That is until halfway into the movie when we find ourselves at a party where we meet the enigmatic Xenia, something of a vampire patriarch that views humanity as something fragile that should not be harmed. The discussion she and her fellow vampires have about human kind brings so many interesting ideas and has more spark than every god damn vampire movie made in the last ten years put together. After that the whole enterprise becomes much more interesting and when Mimi sets things in motion for her own personal gain toward the end I found myself enjoying this much more than I was expecting after the pretty but slightly empty first half. The ending could possibly have gone a different way than it actually did, there was an opportunity for some grand mayhem but really, it would not have been proper for this movie.


So, Kiss of the damned is a sexy and beautiful love story drenched in blood. Slightly flawed but in the end a very rewarding experience.

And don't just hate it when you recognize an actor from somewhere and you realize it's from Gilmore girls?

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